My view from onstage at a Mannheim Steamroller concert in Athens. One of the many holiday gigs!

It was about a week before Christmas and I was massively overscheduled--but the Falcons wanted Celli to be involved in a project for the playoffs.

Sure, I thought. AFTER Christmas!

In case you didn't know this: Christmas is when most musicians make most of their money. Sometimes our extra earnings from the month of December are the only thing that keeps us fed in the lean summer months! And because there is so much work to be had then, it keeps us extremely busy.

Here's how busy I was:

​Again, I was thinking this would go down AFTER Christmas.

But they needed it done the week before the holiday-- DURING THE BUSIEST WEEK OF THE YEAR!

First things first...

Step 1:

We had to go into the studio to record a track. The idea was to remake Jermaine Dupri's legendary "Welcome to Atlanta." Luckily, I had a 10-hour bus ride a few days before we were scheduled to go into the studio to record, so I could listen to the track and write out parts for us to play.

Then we had to shoot the video...

It was HARD to find a day where we could reschedule everything to try to fit in a video shoot. But we were told it was to be on the ROOF of the new Mercedes Benz Stadium, so we had to make it work!

The day before the shoot, we were told it was going to be too foggy to get any footage of the skyline behind us on the roof so they asked if we could reschedule. We couldn't make it work, so we would just have to shoot our part of the video indoors.

We were so disappointed!

In the meantime, I had to figure out how to do "edgy, goth" makeup! That was an adventure in and of itself!

The toilet situation...

Mercedes Benz stadium

​Once we got to the stadium, our green room was quite sparse.

Turns out it was the Press Room.

Someone came and took us to a better green room...

The Press Room

COACH DAN QUINN'S OFFICE!!!

Luxuriating in DQ's office

This was very nice--much better than the press room! But there was one disgusting aspect...

The toilet!

I know. Weird, right? I definitely took a picture, but I won't post it here in case some of you have sensitive stomachs. Let's just say that I had never seen that many different colors of MOLD before.

Of course, the powers-that-be sent in someone to clean it ASAP.

It only occurred to me after the shoot that this was probably a good luck dirty toilet. You know how that sport-ball jinx stuff goes. Maybe this was a "don't-clean-until-after-the-playoffs-are-over" type of dirty toilet.

Ooops.

The shoot itself was so much fun, but it was lots of hard work too. I had to concentrate on looking mean (not my usual face as you probably know!), and we had to make the same wild arm motions over and over and over... Luckily we were playing to our previously recorded track, so we didn't have to sound good. Whew.

To the roof...

Though we didn't actually get to shoot on the roof, they let us go with the whole crew to the roof to watch Jermaine's shoot after our part was finished filming. I have never in my life been that excited to climb so many steps! At one point we were standing on a catwalk right behind the halo screen which I had watched from way down below at so many Atlanta United games!

Aftermath...

Well the Falcons made it to the playoffs, so our video was released on January 4th 2018. If they hadn't made it, I would have felt so guilty about that toilet cleaning... plus the video would not have been released until NEXT SEASON!

You can find the article they put out about the video HERE.And the finished product itself:

Another side benefit is Jermaine Dupri and I are now besties. Although I am not sure he knows that...

In anticipation and celebration of playing Kinky Boots at the Fox next week, I finally edited the footage I filmed a few years ago when I invited a few students to sit with me in the pit for a show. Hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look!

Here's a bonus video of me and the fun folks in the Sound of Music touring orchestra goofing off in the pit:

Lugging a cello to and from school or a gig--or even just to your lesson!--can be such a hassle sometimes. But travelling even longer distances can seem downright impossible. Going on tour? Hah! Good luck.

And I decided it might be fun to share with you a few of my cello travel-adventures.

The Burning Bus﻿﻿

I'm the one wearing dog tags. Smart!

The first adventure came about after I had only been playing cello a few years. Our orchestra director decided to take us to a festival in exotic Panama City which required our hiring a bus. A Grey Line bus to be exact (I will never forget that company as long as I live).

I was so excited to be travelling with my orchestra! The day we left, I sprayed my bangs up extra high and packed my caboodle with all my fancy travel toiletries and hip Swatch watch. This was going to be a BLAST!

Everything seemed fine for a while until the bus stopped. We were in the most remote part of the Florida panhandle, and I remember thinking: Who chose this time to take a potty break? There's no McDonald's in sight.

The bus driver got off the bus and circled around the to the back . Maybe it was because I had somehow weasled my way into the "cool" section of the bus, but no one around me showed any signs of panic. Apparently, we had no idea what was going on. Even when the driver came back on and calmly grabbed the fire extinguisher, we still sat motionless until someone yelled, "It didn't work!"

Suddenly we became aware of the flames shooting out from somewhere beneath the "cool" section, and a frenzy erupted--a tangle of gangly legs and arms fighting to get out.

Only then did I see that there was no school-bus-type emergency exit in the back. Why had I wanted to sit here?!

The adults, who were smart enough to have positioned themselves near the door, yelled at us to leave everything behind. Duh.

Don't worry, we all escaped unscathed. But every single violin and viola was burned to ashes, along with my beloved caboodle and Swatch watch (I still mourn for these items). I was secretly hoping my crappy rental cello might perish in the flames as well, but some heroic parent took it upon himself to fling to safety all the large instruments that had been stored underneath the bus. So I was reunited with the yellow beast after the shop had patched all the dings with a hideous blood red varnish that made the cello look as though it had been vandalized (and only intensified my disdain for that particular instrument).

Needless to say, we didn't play the festival.

The blaze was undoubtedly fed by all our cans of hairspray!

Cello Choir in Chile

By Plane

Waiting to send the cellos to certain doom.

Eighteen cellos under a plane. Not much more to say. It was horrible. Each one of us feared the worst: opening our case to find toothpicks...

On Foot

Why didn't we learn the flute?!

On a Boat

Loading the cellos onto a boat to give a concert on an island!

This made it all seem worth it!

More Cellos on a Plane (or not!)

In Japan with the awful cello

When I first started college, I had the opportunity to play a few concerts in Japan. Fun, right? It was. Except for the playing part.

The people in charge refused to buy a seat for my cello and insisted I use a cello that I would receive once I got there. It turned out to be horribly set up. The strings were so high off the fingerboard that I could barely press them down. I had an awful first performance on that cello. Though I got more comfortable with it as the tour went on, it was a terribly difficult time for me, and I swore I would never do that again.

Many years later, I found myself touring China. Only now, instead of playing on one strange cello that I could get used to during the three-week tour, I had a new cello in every city--super fun! In some cities, we would show up and have to put the strings and bridges on the instruments ourselves, like they had just come straight from the factory, They had never been played. Ever. A few times they were nearly unplayable, but we struggled through. The show must go on!

Katie, me, and Erin with a few of the good cellos we played in China

There were plenty of times when I got to take my own cello on the plane with me, but those times were blissfully uneventful and best relayed in a different blog post.

Here are a few stories of cellos with plane tickets that didn't go so well:

Last week, a friend had a helpful reminder for me, and I just wanted to pass its wisdom along to you:

"Here's your comfort zone," and she made a little box with her hands. "And HERE," a little spirit-finger frill off to the side, "is where the magic happens."

This is SO true!

So, in the spirit of getting out of my comfort zone, I want to admit something to you, in case you hadn't heard the rumors: I'm in a band,

What kind of band, you ask? Well, it's kind of electronic-techno-pop-rock.... I really have no idea how to describe it. No, I don't play a keytar (although I grew up longing to be like Kimber from Jem)! I actually play the cello and sing in this band. We're called Pink Pompeii (long story about the name).

Classically-trained cellist by day... well, still a classically-trained cellist at night--but you know what I'm trying to say: There are a lot of fun places to stick a cello! (That reminds me of the time I decided to practice while lying in bed; I literally stuck my endpin in the wall. Kids, I don't recommend trying this at home. And if you do, blame Yo-Yo! That guy is such a trouble-maker!)

Kimber from Jem

Cello can be so much fun to mess around with in a non-traditional way. I have had a simple looping pedal for a while (BOSS RC-20XL). With this fun piece of tech, you can record riffs while you are playing them and then layer other sounds (they don't have to be "pretty!") on top of those to create a groove of your very own.

This is extremely useful since you can learn to improvise and get comfortable composing in the privacy of your own home. Noodling like this can snowball into entire songs, rock operas, or minimalist movie soundtracks (if only in my mind).

So, getting out of your comfort zone with a little bit of technology like this can actually make you more comfortable with the subjects that can sometimes seem a bit intimidating.

Now, back to the band.

It's a bit tricky to use this pedal when other people/hardware are involved, so it hasn't seen much action in Pink Pompeii (besides making the ubiquitous ethereal whale-noises and trance-y ambient drones). If I play a riff and loop it with my pedal, it gradually gets out of sync with the rest of the musicians and computers (like the windshield-wipers always do when you're favorite song is playing).

So, I have recently acquired some hardware that will allow me to make my loops with my iPad--which will then talk to all the other computers and iPads in the band and magically synchronize.

I hope.

I'll keep you posted, but I am definitely out of my comfort zone on this stuff!

In the meantime, here are some video examples of string instrument looping that will give you a taste of what it's like:

Maybe I have a problem with authority. Or maybe I'm just one of those people who can be completely duped by reverse-psychology. Who knows what causes it, but there is something about a person telling me that I can't do something that gets me completely riled up and determined to do exactly what they say I am unable to do.

I think that is the main reason why I am a cellist today.

When I was a teenager, I attended a bunch of music camps and workshops since (besides academics of course) I had no life beyond cello in high school. No sports. No boyfriend. Just cello. (Now that doesn't mean I was a big practicer. I was your typical teenager, not too keen on spending hours by myself playing through etudes--since that was what practicing meant to me back in the day).

Anyway, I found myself at a certain music camp with a very strict cello instructor. Needless to say, it wasn't much fun. The lessons with this guy were downright scary for me. One of our sessions ended with a his very cold statement:

"You have no business playing the cello. Quit now."

Huh?

And then, devastation.

I just left his studio. I was speechless.

Needless to say, I never went back. And soon the devastation I had initially felt was replaced by a seething rage. Maybe my fury was directed towards the teacher. Maybe I was just mad at myself. I still can't be sure. But after that day, I was set on fire! I worked harder at cello than I ever had before, simply because I was told I couldn't cut it.

The anger fueled my new work ethic. I just had to prove that guy wrong. And later, I found myself working as hard as I could because I just wanted to. I started to like the process. The hard work stopped coming from a hostile place and just became a new habit of mine.

Along the way, there have been many more instances like this. (Keep in mind that I am not talking about constructive criticism, which I feel is a completely positive thing. It's like the person is investing in furthering your success by letting you know what you need to work on. I think criticism is totally different than someone telling you to just throw in the towel.) Each time someone said I couldn't make it, the words affected me like a gravitational slingshot. I flew away into my cello work with a burning blaze of intensity even greater than before.

But nothing affected me as greatly as the initial Naysayer did. He sparked the dawn of my devotion to playing the cello as a vocation.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.

I am playing a chamber music concert. It's so much fun for me, and I am reminded how much I love what I do. Afterwards, I am surprised when a fellow cellist approaches to congratulate me backstage.

It only occurs to me after he is gone that I should have thanked him for doing me such a favor all those years ago. After all, his saying "NO" to me gave me a reason to respond with a resounding 'YES!"

"Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.” -Isabel Allende, author

The idea that most of our memories are incredibly embellished--and sometimes downright made-up-- hit me like a ton of bricks as I was cleaning out my old room in my childhood home a few weeks ago. This job was difficult, considering I am a sentimental person. And back in the day I was an unreformed, certified pack rat as well. So, needless to say, the room was filled with an unfathomable amount of artifacts from my past--a past that had apparently been adapted into a rags-to-riches screenplay in my mind.

Ever get the feeling that you might be insane? That's how I felt as I read through a few dusty college acceptance letters that I found in storage boxes under my bed. One from the Peabody Conservatory stood out. It completely negated the story I always tell about how I ended up going to Columbus State for undergrad.

THE BASIC STORY: We had no money for college, so I worked really hard in high school (this part is true). Because I got no scholarship to any conservatory, I luckily ended up at Columbus State,and studied with Martha Gerschefski who completely changed my life for the better.

THE CONTRADICTING EVIDENCE: An acceptance letter to the Peabody Conservatory and an accompanying financial aid statement which showed an offered amount that was just shy of a full-scholarship.

Huh?! I stared at the letter in disbelief and then tried to think back...

I "remember" parts of my audition for Peabody vividly. Warming up in a little room with other, very intimidating cellists. Waiting outside the audition room door while the current auditionee finished playing the first movement of the Saint-Saens concerto, the same piece I would be playing. Realizing in horror as I heard it that the crazy double-stop passage in the first movement is supposed to be actual sets of distinct intervals (and not what I was playing which was the cello equivalent of jamming your entire forearm on the piano keyboard in a frantic chicken-dance of cluster chords). The next part is a blur. I know I apologized to the audition panel for what was about to happen, because I remember the response I got from one of the faculty members, basically, "Don't ever do that." I must have motored through the audition, despite the knowledge that the humiliation would be horrible and great.

I managed to survive that experience--and I THINK all the facts about the audition are true. I know my memory will forever be suspect, but I do have audio tapes to prove how I was playing back then. Ugh.

Somehow I got in. And somehow they decided to give me money. So, why did I remember that part wrong?

Humiliation? Was it just unfathomable that they could want me to show my face there at Peabody again? So the letter was some kind of mistake--and therefore I just forgot about it? Fixed history with my mind? (For the record, this seems scary. What else have I "fixed?")

Did I already suspect (what I would find out later to be true) that I am not a conservatory-type of person and felt I needed some kind of external excuse for that fact?

Did I want to say that my decision was made by fate, so that I wasn't to blame if Columbus turned out to be a bad choice?

Who knows the reason. And it doesn't really matter now anyway (except that I feel like my credibility is now completely shot when it comes to past life events. No more winning an argument about how much it actually snowed back in the Great Blizzard of '93...)The one thing that I DO remember correctly is that Martha eventually taught me how to figure out and play correctly that passage in the Saint-Saens (and any other piece I sit down to learn), and I have never looked back!

Well... RARELY.

Here are a few of the other artifacts I discovered while sorting through all that stuff:

I linoleum cut I did in high school

A confidence-boosting drawing my little sister gave me almost 20 years ago.

High School fame!

CSU poster. That's me in the upper left corner.

I don't know what this is but I love it!

Music and cats... There was no saving me, even in my teens.

Newspaper article on a concert I got to play in Kiryu, Japan with CSU's "exchange" tour.

I actually like driving to gigs. I get a lot of time to think about things while on the road. Sometimes sitting and thinking is a luxury I can't afford during a busy season.

On the way to this season's first rehearsal with the Savannah Philharmonic yesterday, I heard an interview with Linda Ronstadt. There was one question asked about jealousy between musicians, and she responded, "Competition is for horse races; there is no place for competition in art."

What a great way to put it! Of course, that got me thinking...

We are all just trying to make music--and we all have an individual voice. No one can exactly copy someone else's music making (and I feel like it is pointless to try. How boring would that be?). So, why bother being jealous or competitive? Just do your thing!

That's one of the big reasons I am loving the Savannah Philharmonic. The cello section is so chummy--I feel like we really do love and support each other. We are not trying to knock each other out of the way to get a shot at first chair. We just do our thing. I wish every cello section was like this one.

In grad school, someone told me, "You will never be the next Yo-Yo Ma." Yeah. Okay. So what?

I'm really glad about that fact--because I'm actually trying to be the next best Nan Kemberling!

I was having coffee with a friend the other day at a coffee shop, when the owner brought in this cute kitten that one of the employees had found hanging out in the dumpster behind the shop. She was so sweet. I knew I was doomed to take her home, even though I already had three cats! Just more evidence that I am a crazy cat lady.

Crazy cat cello lady, that is.

When I first met Bean (as in, coffee bean, get it?)

I immediately started her on cello. Just plucking open strings for now.

Cats are great practice companions. They really know how to keep that annoying free space between the cello and your lap warm and occupied.